Connecticut western news., 1887-12-21
Max Dwight's Reward.
BY MRS. M. sHEFFEY-PETERs.

Max Dwight was ready for his early tramp to the upland lake where, as he knew, there was a certain out-cropping of roots suited to the manufacture of some rustic benches he had been prom ising to make for his wife.
 Mistress Janet accompanied him to the porch of their cottage, carrying Tottie, who in her pink and white pret- tiness of babyhood, was as like the young mother as the wild roses bud is like the wild rose. .s
 seThe rain must have been heavy above here," remarked Mistress Dwight, not ing the aspect of the creek in the Di- vide.
 The stream, ordinarily tangled like a silver wire among the powders and bosky hollows at the base of the ridge, was chafng in its bed, the acceleration of its current betrayed by untitled roar.
 "Yes, when the Otter's boosting along like that, the pity is that the mill stands still, and the hands are idle," con- plained Dwight.
 "Don't fret, Max. I'd not get my benches but for the mill machinery being out of gear"
 He laughed, kissed her and Tottie, and moment later was striding down the path to the bridge, whose arches connected the jutting ridge on which he lived with the further side of the Otter. This stream, lower down, did the work of an army of giants, turning the wheels of the mills and factories, in which hum dreds of bread-winners daily toiled. Alluvial bottoms, cultivated farms, vil- lage homes of peace and plenty, and countless other evidences of prosperity
 ay behind Dwight when he had crossed the bridge and turned into the path leading upward to the lake plateau.
 Always observant, he noticed that the creek was steadily rising.
 s'The rain must have flushed the lake considerably" he thought stopping once to inspect tangled mat of drift whirling past. ''Bless me if that isn't
 y-pad from the lakes bed. How.
 ever anything but hurricane" H.
 stopped short.
 | A horrifying fear had throttled hin
 in the rugged path. The morning wa
 instinct with joyousness. To the ear cam
 the matin symphonies of nature; to tn
 eye her harmonies of light, color, move
 ment. Overhead were fockings o
 swelling cumuh white as fresh washed
 sheep browsing in spacious pasturag
 of the myosotis bloom.
 | Whence was the menace of evila | Wrestling with the Shape in the way
 as Christian wrestled with Apollyon
 Dwight saw, drifting by, another clum]
 of lily pads, tangled with vine full o
 foliage and budding fruit.
 'It's branch of the wild-grape tha
 climbs the sycamore next the lakes
 rim," came to him with the force of as surance, and casting aside his axe, h sped up the ascent he had been leisurel
 climbing.
 Reaching the plateau, in the midst 0 whose picturesqueness was embowere,
 the lake, overhanging the defile like Babylonish garden, he saw, almost t his chagrin, its hundreds of millions C cubic feet of water placidly smiling an dimpling in the sunshine. The rain ha not flushed it. Flushed9 The lake wa } lower than its lowest water mark!
 The fear he had shaken off leape
 upon him and tore at his vitals again As his gaze darted along the embark ment to the cleft through which tn creek flowed, he saw that the stream was not only momentarily eating its wa !: deeper into the rim, but that, here ant , there, the embankment showed Assures ! indicating an extended dislodgmcnt 0 e the natural supports of the lake basir X practical engineer himself, Dwigl had always entertained doubt of tt [ stability of that freak of nature-th e disproportionate fountain head of Ottt . Creek. Some day, he had thought, tt t cray fish, the otters, the thawing an , the freezing would do their work an I then would come the drainage of u Il great basin.
 II But not in his day! Oh, no! N u when he had just builded Q home f. Il Janet and the black-eyed Tottie rigl ' in the shadow of the superincumbel 10 ruin; not while the valley below W Il astir with the whirr of mills, tho ste ' ping of busy feet along its ways of plea ;. antness and peace.
 '' But it had come in his day! As l y stood staring, a Assure widened and II bold stream shot forth. At the sight ,. turned and fled down tho path. Ma II uraiiy, his first impulse was to fly wi
 ths WIpins tq bis wife epa child ;sure s.szss<